“Eat,” the woman tells her with a flick of her lace-gloved hand, so Rashka does so, attempting to refrain from wolfing down the bun, but she can’t really stop herself. Soon the plate holds nothing but crumbs. Crumbs that she collects and licks from her fingers.
“
Rashka blinks. Swallows heavily.
“A little mongrel licking crumbs from her plate. Only starved little animals do that. It’s a perfect signal.”
Rashka blinks again. Is the woman angry with her? She sounds like she might be, and Feter Fritz warned her of the lady’s temper. But then the gnä’ Fräulein arches an eyebrow. “Wipe your fingers, child,” she says in a tone that is nearly maternal. “And when you
There is a man too. Cronenberg is his name, though the gnä’ Fräulein calls him Emil. Like the Fräulein herself, he has great freedoms. Great privileges. He is handsome like a wolf is handsome and blond as any Aryan might hope to be, though Rashka knows him to be a Jew. Like the gnä’ Fräulein, he is a “Greifer.” A catcher. A grabber. He favors the style of leather trench coat and snap-brim hat that Gestapo men often wear as an unofficial uniform and carries a police pistol in his coat pocket. He is quite brazenly obvious in his desire for his red-haired partner. On the other hand, he observes Rashka like she is a dog turd he must avoid stepping upon.
It is his job to make the arrests. The gnä’ Fräulein searches out her prey, and the man steps in with his pistol.
By the end of the summer of 1944, things change drastically for all residents of the Grosse Hamburger Strasse when the Judenlager is moved to smaller quarters in the Schulstrasse. Transport after transport, trainload after trainload, even as the city suffers under bombing day and night, has depleted the camp’s human inventory. There simply aren’t enough Jews left to warrant such space. So orders were issued by Dirkweiler’s bosses. The whole operation has been transferred from the former old age home to the Jewish Hospital in Berlin-Wedding.
An iron gate located at Schulstrasse 79 leads to the pathology building, where Jews are now confined to the morgue. Therefore, in order to cram the whole show into this new, congested space, the fat must be trimmed! The glut of Jews who are of no value to Kommandant Dirkweiler must be shipped out. The Gestapo is finished with many of the Jewish functionaries. Their services are no longer required, nor are the services of many of the orderlies. So a special transport to the Paradise lager is organized. Yet—a miracle! Feter’s name is scratched from the list! Not by a miracle, really, but by the miracle worker, Angelika Rosen. “Perhaps,” Rashka’s eema posits, “she has not become so hard-hearted as to completely forget the past.”
On the floor of the morgue, the Jews huddle, sleeping in an imitation of death. The cacophony of snores and snorts, however, indicates life. Rashka is pressed back to back with her eema. She can feel every twitch of her mother’s body like it’s her own, every spasm of sleep. When she hears the scuff of shoe leather on the tiles, her eyes pop open.
“
“Rokhl,” he whispers in return, pressing a finger to his lips. And then he says, “Don’t wake your mother.”
Walking down the corridor beside Feter, she is hugging her shoulders with her arms against the chill of the cellar. Rashka is confused. “I don’t understand,” she is saying. “Why must I leave Eema?”
“Because it’s the best thing for you,” her uncle tells her.
“Because the gnä’ Fräulein says I must?”
“There’s a small room that’s empty that she wants you to fill. You’ll have better food. Warm blankets.”
“But why?”
“Because the gnä’ Fräulein says you must.”
“I don’t understand,” Rashka repeats. “Why can’t Eema come with me?”
“Your eema will be safe where she is,” Feter Fritz assures her as they walk through the gray light. “Protected,” he says.
“By
“You know by whom,” he tells her.
“But how can that be? It’s